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View Full Version : attach prop to avatar?


Arne
10-13-2003, 03:49 PM
Hey Folks, In developing avatar animations with props in 3ds Max, is there a way to export an object linked to a biped bone structure into Vizard, or is there a way to attach an object to an avatar bone, like an ice cream cone to a hand bone, or a rubber chicken to a skull? Thanks Arne

farshizzo
10-13-2003, 05:54 PM
mmmmm..... ice cream

This sample code will link an object to an avatar bone:
avatar = viz.add('female.cfg')
link = viz.add(viz.GROUP)
cone = link.add('IceCream.wrl')
avatar.linkbone(link,'Right Hand')
If you need to orientate the object after it is linked, you have to perform the tranformation on the cone object. Also in the example above I linked the ice cream cone to the bone named Right Hand, so make sure you change this to whatever you named the bone in Character Studio.

Arne
10-15-2003, 08:20 AM
Hey the Ice cream cone trick worked! I have characters running around with ice cream like there's no tomorrow, But they got no heads.:)
Is there a "attach-a-head" thing going on too? IE is there a way to attach a head so the neck flexes in a non-stone like manner?
Thanks Arne

farshizzo
10-15-2003, 11:48 AM
Are you talking about heads created in Character Studio or 3DMeNow? Being able to swap Character Studio heads wouldn't be too difficult, but swapping 3DMeNow heads is a whole different story.

Arne
10-15-2003, 02:58 PM
The heads are coming out of 3ds Max.

farshizzo
10-15-2003, 03:17 PM
Well, you could export the head as a separate mesh (cmf) file and then create a separate cfg file using the new mesh as the head. If you need to swap the heads dynamically at run-time then I could look into adding a command to do this. Have you tried the first option yet?

Arne
10-16-2003, 09:52 AM
How would this effect animations? Would I have to export seperate animation for the body and the head and then activate them in Vizard at the same time or what? I'll experiment.

farshizzo
10-16-2003, 10:05 AM
I've never tried this but it seems like you should be able to create multiple heads for the same body and and export them as separte mesh files with separate material files. The only limitation I see is that the mesh files might have to have the same structure (ie same number of polygons and polygon order). I'm not sure how this will affect animations, but if the mesh files have the same structure then I don't see any reason why the old animations wouldn't work.